Sundaresan Jayaraman is a professor in the School of Materials Science and Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He is also the Founding Director of the Kolon Center for Lifestyle Innovation established at Georgia Tech in October 2016. A pioneer in bringing about convergence between textiles and computing, Jayaraman’s research has led to the paradigm of “Fabric is the Computer.” He is a leader in studying and defining the roles of engineering design, manufacturing and materials technologies in public policy for the nation. 

Jayaraman and his research students have made significant contributions in the following areas: (i) Smart Textile-based Wearable Systems; (ii) Computer-aided Manufacturing, Automation and Enterprise Architecture Modeling; (iii) Engineering Design and Analysis of Intelligent Textile Structures and Processes; (iv) Design and Development of Knowledge Based Systems (KBS) for textiles and apparel; and (v) Design and Development of Respiratory Protection Systems. His group's research has led to the realization of the world's first Wearable Motherboard™, also known as the “Smart Shirt” (www.smartshirt.gatech.edu). This invention was featured in a Special Issue of LIFE Magazine entitled Medical Miracles for the New Millennium (Fall 1998) as One of the 21 Breakthroughs that Could Change Your Life in the 21st Century. The first Smart Shirt is now part of the Archives of the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, DC. 

Prior to Georgia Tech, Jayaraman had the privilege of working with Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston, the Co-Creators of the world’s first spreadsheet – VisiCalc®. VisiCalc was the first “killer app” that transformed the computing industry by bringing computing to the masses through the proliferation of personal computers. During his PhD, he was involved in the design and development of TK!Solver, the world’s first equation-solving program from Software Arts, Inc., Cambridge, MA. He worked there as a Product Manager and then at Lotus Development Corporation (makers of 1-2-3®) in Cambridge, MA. 

Jayaraman is a recipient of the 1989 Presidential Young Investigator Award from NSF for his research in the area of computer aided manufacturing and enterprise architecture. In September 1994, he was elected a Fellow of the Textile Institute, (UK). His publications include a textbook on computer-aided problem solving published by McGraw-Hill in 1991, ten U.S. patents, and numerous refereed journal papers, and book chapters. As Principal Investigator, he has received nearly $16Million in research funding from a variety of sources including NSF, DARPA, DoD, NIST, CDC, and industry. Dr. Jayaraman served as Technical Editor, Information Technology, for ATI Magazine (now Textile World) from 1995-2003. From May 2000 to October 2004, he was an Editor of the Journal of the Textile Institute and is currently on the Editorial Advisory Board.

Jayaraman is a founding member of the IOM Standing Committee on Personal Protective Equipment in the Workplace (2005-2013). From December 2008 to February 2011, he served on the Board on Manufacturing and Engineering Design of the National Academies. In February 2011, he became a founding member of the National Materials and Manufacturing Board of the National Academies. He has also served on nine Study Committees for the National Academy of Medicine (formerly Institute of Medicine) and the National Research Council of the National Academies. He is also a founding member of the IEEE Technical Committee on Biomedical Wearable Systems (2004 –2008). In October 2000, Jayaraman received the Georgia Technology Research Leader Award from the State of Georgia. He received The 2018 Textile Institute Research Publication Award for the most outstanding paper published in 2018 in the Journal of the Textile Institute. In December 2019, he received the Inaugural Distinguished Alumni Award from A.C. College of Technology, Chennai, India.

David Hu is a fluid dynamicist with expertise in the mechanics of interfaces between fluids such as air and water. He is a leading researcher in the biomechanics of animal locomotion. The study of flying, swimming and running dates back hundreds of years, and has since been shown to be an enduring and rich subject, linking areas as diverse as mechanical engineering, mathematics and neuroscience. Hu's work in this area has the potential to impact robotics research. Before robots can interact with humans, aid in minimally-invasive surgery, perform interplanetary exploration or lead search-and-rescue operations, we will need a fundamental physical understanding of how related tasks are accomplished in their biological counterparts. Hu's work in these areas has generated broad interest across the fields of engineering, biology and robotics, resulting in over 30 publications, including a number in high-impact interdisciplinary journals such as Nature, Nature Materials, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences as well as popular journals such as Physics Today and American Scientist. Hu is on editorial board member for Nature Scientific Reports, The Journal of Experimental Biology, and NYU Abu Dhabi's Center for Center for Creative Design of Materials. He has won the NSF CAREER award, Lockheed Inspirational Young Faculty award, and best paper awards from SAIC, Sigma Xi, ASME, as well as awards for science education such as the Pineapple Science Prize and the Ig Nobel Prize. Over the years, Hu's research has also played a role in educating the public in science and engineering. He has been an invited guest on numerous television and radio shows to discuss his research, including Good Morning America, National Public Radio, The Weather Channel, and Discovery Channel. His ant research was featured on the cover of the Washington Post in 2011. His work has also been featured in The Economist, The New York Times, National Geographic, Popular Science and Discover His laboratory appeared on 3D TV as part of a nature documentary by 3DigitalVision, "Fire ants: the invincible army," available on Netflix.

Dennis Hess’s research interests are in thin film science and technology, surface and interface modification and characterization, microelectronics processing and electronic materials. His group focuses on the establishment of fundamental structure-property relationships and their connection to chemical process sequences used in the fabrication of novel films, electronic materials, devices, and nanostructures. Control of the surface properties of materials such as dielectrics, semiconductors, metals, and paper or paper board by film deposition or surface modification allows the design of such surfaces for a variety of applications in microelectronics, packaging, sensors, microfluidics, and separation processes.

Peter Hesketh came to Georgia Tech in spring 2000 as a professor in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering. Prior, he was associate professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Hesketh's research interests involve sensors and micro/nano-electro-mechanical Systems (MEMS/NEMS). Many sensors are built by micro/nanofabrication techniques and this provides a host of advantages including lower power consumption, small size and light weight. The issue of manipulation of the sample in addition to introduce it to the chemical sensor array is often achieved with microfluidics technology. Combining photolithographic processes to define three-dimensional structures can accomplish the necessary fluid handling, mixing, and separation through chromatography. Hesketh is also interested in nanosensors, impedance based sensors, miniature magnetic actuators and the use of stereolithography for sensor packaging. He has published over sixty papers and edited fifteen books on microsensor systems.

Jennifer Hasler received her B.S.E. and M.S. degrees in electrical engineering from Arizona State University in August 1991. She received her Ph.D. in computation and neural systems from California Institute of Technology in February 1997. Hasler is a professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering; Atlanta is the coldest climate in which Hasler has lived. Hasler founded the Integrated Computational Electronics (ICE) laboratory at Georgia Tech, a laboratory affiliated with the Laboratories for Neural Engineering. Hasler is a member of Tau Beta P, Eta Kappa Nu, and the IEEE.

Samuel Graham is the Rae S. and Frank H. Neely Professor in the School of Mechanical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He also holds an appointment in the School of Materials Science and Engineering at Georgia Tech and a joint appointment with the Energy and Transportation Science Division at Oak Ridge National Laboratories. His research focuses on the packaging and reliability of electronic devices ranging from wide bandgap semiconductors to flexible organic electronics and wearable sensors. His is a member of the Center for Organic Photonics and Electronics at Georgia Tech and a co-founder of the Heat Lab which provides thermal solutions for electronics packaging.

Fedorov's background is in thermal/fluid sciences, chemical reaction engineering as well as in applied mathematics. His laboratory works at the intersection between mechanical and chemical engineering and solid state physics and analytical chemistry with the focus on portable/ distributed power generation with synergetic CO₂ capture; thermal management of high power dissipation devices and electronics cooling; special surfaces and nanostructured interfaces for catalysis, heat and moisture management; and development of novel bioanalytical instrumentation and chemical sensors. Fedorov joined Georgia Tech in 2000 as an assistant professor after finishing his postdoctoral work at Purdue University.

Jaydev P. Desai, Ph.D, is currently a Professor and BME Distinguished Faculty Fellow in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech. Prior to joining Georgia Tech in August 2016, he was a Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Maryland, College Park (UMCP). He completed his undergraduate studies from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, India, in 1993. He received his M.A. in Mathematics in 1997, M.S. and Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics in 1995 and 1998 respectively, all from the University of Pennsylvania. He was also a Post-Doctoral Fellow in the Division of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Harvard University. He is a recipient of several NIH R01 grants, NSF CAREER award, and was also the lead inventor on the "Outstanding Invention of 2007 in Physical Science Category" at the University of Maryland, College Park. He is also the recipient of the Ralph R. Teetor Educational Award. In 2011, he was an invited speaker at the National Academy of Sciences "Distinctive Voices" seminar series on the topic of "Robot-Assisted Neurosurgery" at the Beckman Center. He was also invited to attend the National Academy of Engineering's 2011 U.S. Frontiers of Engineering Symposium. He has over 150 publications, is the founding Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Medical Robotics Research, and Editor-in-Chief of the Encyclopedia of Medical Robotics (currently in preparation). His research interests are primarily in the area of image-guided surgical robotics, rehabilitation robotics, cancer diagnosis at the micro-scale, and rehabilitation robotics. He is a Fellow of the ASME and AIMBE.